Post-individualism
by Severin Matusek and · updated 1mo ago
Post-individualism
by Severin Matusek and · updated 1mo ago
Throughout the last few decades, our economic system has transformed society into a market, citizens into consumers, and communities into individuals
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
sari added 5mo ago
This was illuminating. My notes:
Negative power is the way people have been control for most of human history.
Negative power means being controlled by prohibition or limitation, telling people you can’t do this or that. Today, people are controlled through positive power. Positive power tells you you can be whatever you want, you’re in charge, so you have no limitations. As long as you can put your head down, focus, grind, achieve your short term goals, set new ones and achieve those.
Authenticity is an ad campaign of neo-liberalism. It's a self absorbed nightmare. People now have to define themselves through themselves without any sort of help from the outside. Everyone is their own little personal project. Everything we learn is not just learning anymore. It's an investment in ourselves. Everything is about mentally optimizing yourself working, producing more efficiently with your mind.
Understanding public goods as positive externalities enables us to consider people that are not typically classified as members of a public to be our beneficiaries. This definition stands in contrast to economic discourse, where non-contributing users of some public good are considered "free riders," indicative of market failure. How coul
... See moreKeely Adler added 1mo ago
unfortunately, there are no rules in human nature that turn economic abundance into a sense of personal abundance
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
Will we update our scripts and stories about how the world actually works? Or is this a conversation that people just don’t want to have? Is it easier to pretend that everyone can make it?
I don’t have good answers to these questions, but I sense the disconnect between what people believe at a societal level and the market finding reality of an econ
... See moreKeely Adler added 1mo ago
"[Swaraj] is loosely defined as self-rule but it actually goes much deeper," says Kothari, who has written extensively on Swaraj and the ecological crisis. "It means my own autonomy, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, my independence, both as an individual and as a community. But it's not the American notion of individualism that I can
... See moreKeely Adler added 1mo ago
suffering is conceptualized in ways that protect the current economy from criticism—namely, as rooted in individual rather than social causes, which means we must favor self over social reform
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
sari added 2y ago
dane cads added 2y ago